The Moon Race

In some quarters over the past four decades, some people have argued there was in fact no race to the Moon, that in fact the Soviet Union never intended to put a man on the Moon. Researcher Charles Vick has a different view.

Vick has gone through Soviet archives and interviewed engineers involved with the Soviet space program, and he says the Soviets authorized the building of a huge booster in 1960. In 1964, that booster was tasked with launching a manned lunar mission. It was to have been a tw0 man affair, with one man walking on the lunar surface. American intelligence kept close tabs on Soviet space efforts, he says, and the White House paced the U. S. effort partly on its knowledge of Soviet progress.

Between 1969 and 1972, according to Vick, the Soviets tried to test launch the booster-- the N-1-- three times. Each time ended in disaster. The program was canceled in 1974.

Developing International Space Conduct

Space law is still a sketchy area, largely because, historically, space operations have been the nearly exclusive province of the major powers of the time. That situation has changed. Many nations now have active space programs, and many private corporations, and other organizations, are moving out.

Instead of trying to work out a major new treaty to govern the new and evolving reality, the Obama administration's space policy is taking a step-by-step approach. It is pursuing an agreement on dealing with space debris, and seeking to establish a code of conduct for space operations. Also, the U. S. is pursuing partnerships with other nations while the Department of Defense will begin offering commercial and scientific payloads rides on DoD launches that have excess capacity-- both to help establish overall rules of the road and to maximize tight budgets in tough economic times.

At some point, another major treaty will be required, but starting out by establishing a common mode of behavior seems reasonable.

Jerusalem UFO

During times of increased tensions, UFO sightings often go up in number, suggesting a psychological basis. This week, with the Middle East teetering, a white light was seen to descent upon the Dome of The Rock, then shoot away.

The event, however, was captured on video by at least two observers from two angles. Not, then, psychological.

Active Mars Geology

Researchers using a high resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have discovered that huge sand dune fields in the northern polar region of the planet can change relatively quickly-- in two Martian years, for example, which equals about four Earth years.

They explain the changes by noting the actions of carbon dioxide and wind. During the Martian winters, carbon dioxide is stable in frozen form. It exists atop and within dunes, adding to their stability. In the spring, however, the carbon dioxide changes directly into gas, thus leaving voids in the dunes, and weakening their overall structure. Thus, when winds pick up, the sand can be blown to shape new dunes.

In a narrow sense, therefore, Mars is geologically active now. Whether it is in a broader sense, one that would include marsquakes, water acting in some way to shape the planet even today, or active vulcanism remains to be seen.

More Kepler Stuff

At a news conference yesterday, NASA released a huge amount of data from the operations of the Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft. Two of the main objectives of Kepler are to find Earth-sized worlds and to find worlds that orbit within the habitable zone of the parent star-- essentially, that's the area around the star where water could exist in liquid form on a planetary surface.

So far, Kepler is doing well. The data show 68 potentially Earth-sized worlds, and 54 worlds orbiting within the habitable zone. Five worlds are in both groups. Further research is necessary to confirm, or deny, these results, but the possibilty for exciting finds is there. We should also understand that the concept of a habitable zone simply projects what's necessary for Earthly life into other star systems. That's almost certainly too limiting. For example, three of the strongest possibilities for harboring life elsewhere in this solar system-- Jupiter's Europa, and Saturn's Titan and Enceladus-- all lie outside the Sun's habitable zone.

Kepler is currently in safe mode-- not doing science. Engineers are working to determine why the computer onboard shut things down.

Six Exoplanet System Found

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered a star system that has six confirmed planets-- the most in an alien system yet found. The planets orbit a Sun-like star 2,000 light years away. Five of them orbit that star closer than Mercury orbits the Sun, and their masses range from 2.3 times that of Earth to 13.5 times. All of them could possibly have been hot Jupiters at some point in the past, but their proximity to their star may have resulted in much of their atmospheres, and their masses, being burned away. The sixth planet in the system completes one orbit in 118 days, slightly less than half the orbital period of Venus.

The discovery is just one element of a massive release of Kepler data from NASA today. If all indicators of exoplanets in the data are eventually confirmed, this single release could double the number of exoplanets known, bringing the total to over a thousand.

Geoff Marcy

Geoff Marcy, astronomer and planet hunter at UC- Berkeley, in an interview on SPACE.com, says that several tens of thousands of exoplanets will likely be discovered in the next few decades, largely because of the capabilities of NASA's Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft, and because of the even greater capacities of follow up probes already on the way.

He said Earth-like planets will be found, but Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of their parent stars-- which would mean they could support life as we know it-- are likely to be rare. Marcy points out that worlds the size of Earth would be lightweights in systems that contain Jupiter-sized and larger worlds, and the smaller world could easily get ejected from the system if it came too close to the big guys.

He also suggested intelligent beings and technological civilizations may be rare, citing the fact that such intelligence has arisen on Earth only once, and that one instance occurred extremely recently in geologic time.

That view notwithstanding, Marcy also called for an "Apollo-style" SETI program that would conduct a thorough, systematic search for alien signals, finally really testing the premise underlying SETI after all these years.